Do As We Say, Not As We Do

What country is the leading proponent of nuclear nonproliferation? The United States, which is also the only one to use atomic bombs and possesses the largest nuclear arsenal in the world today.

Nuclear weapons are not the only subject on which Washington displays an inconsistency that erodes credibility when American officials preach to others.

Another example: The U.S. government says it is for a worldwide ban on the use of anti- personnel land mines -- but only if exceptions are made for U.S. mines strewn along the border of North Korea and in other places where the Pentagon thinks mines are needed to safeguard American troops.

And another example of hypocrisy: President Richard Nixon had gone on record pledging a ``no first use'' of chemical weapons when U.S. forces reportedly targeted American deserters in a Laotian village with the nerve gas sarin in 1970. The so-called Operation Tailwind was approved by the White House and the CIA, Time magazine and CNN reported this month. The report's main source was retired Adm. Thomas Moorer, a Vietnam-era chief of naval operations and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Henry Kissinger, who was Mr. Nixon's national security adviser at the time, has declined comment on the nerve gas report.

It is not known whether the suspected military defectors and Laotian civilians died in the assault.

Defense Secretary William Cohen has ordered an inquiry into the allegations. If true, he said, the use of nerve gas ``would have violated our own policy at the time. President Nixon had declared an end to the use of any kind of biological weapons.''

Precisely. This is where the U.S. government gets into trouble. Washington routinely denounces Iraq's Saddam Hussein for using chemical weapons on his Kurdish minority -- and he should be denounced. But the sermon would be far less effective if it was found that the United States had used chemical weapons in Laos.

If Washington expects an end to the manufacture and use of weapons of mass destruction, it must truly lead the way.